A Heart of Fire (2 page)

Aldar shook off those thoughts and lifted his sword in
both hands now, ready to strike. As he came closer to the door ahead, he could
hear more wailing and gentle croons of a woman spilling from the room. He
reached out and eased the door open with his fingertips, only enough to glance
inside and see no warriors hidden there like frightened sheep. There, in the
far corner, sat the thrall huddled over a bundle in her arms, rocking a babe
swaddled in wool.

Aldar snarled. It was not Surguilde as he had wished.
His last wisps of hope in finding her spilled from him in a rage, and Aldar
bared his teeth as anger flashed through him.

Lifting his sword, he stepped into the room and hurled
the blade at the wall where the point sliced into the wood above the woman and
her child. Aldar clenched his fists and shook them to the heavens as he let out
an enraged bellow that surmounted both the startled shriek of the thrall and
the wailing of the baby.

“Where is my brother?" he shouted at the woman as
he stalked forward.

She paled, flattening herself against the wall as she
swallowed another cry. Her wide, rounded eyes spoke her fear. Though she was
apparently terrified of his sudden presence, her gaze met his and locked. Aldar
watched the thrall through the haze drifting into the room. She trembled to
look upon him, as she should.

“Tell me where my brother is and I may be inclined to
spare your life and take you as a slave for myself,” Aldar said. He took
another giant step, yanked his sword from the wall, and then sheathed it.

The woman stumbled on her words, her eyes darting to
the smoke filtering into the room from the door behind Aldar. “A—away,"
she stammered at last. "Hadarr and Surguilde went to her family. A
terrible illness took Surguilde's mother. Please, I—I beg you. Do not kill me.
I will serve you well.” The woman clutched the babe close to her breast,
scooting herself along the floor to bow her head to Aldar's boots.

With contempt and mistrust, he put the flat of his
boot to her cheek and nudged her away. He studied the woman first, and then the
infant, as the thrall stumbled to erect herself from the stone floor. She kept
her head bowed in a show of respect, and so when he reached for her, she did
not see him, but started when he cinched his fingers around her arm and hauled
her the rest of the way to her feet.

“This is your child, woman?” he asked, shaking her. He
bent to look her in the face. The thrall was not very old, yet her youth had
likely been spent in slavery, and hard years had turned her short brown hair to
a lackluster shade and creases had begun to branch at the outer corner of her
eyes. For a woman over a score, she was no great beauty to look upon, nor would
he guess she ever had been. He supposed, for a lonely man on a cold night, one
might find pleasure with her.

Aldar grunted at her appearance.

“Nay," she said, shaking her head. "The
child's name is Finna.” She paused with uncertainty and fear for her infant
charge. “She is your brother’s child.”

Aldar’s eyes chilled like the Nordic night, a fiery
stab of jealousy and fury striking through him. “
Surguilde’s
child?” he clarified.

“Aye,” she answered, bobbing her head.

Aldar did not hesitate before snatching the infant,
his large hands wrapping solidly around the small body. The woman screamed,
stretching her arms out for the babe.

"Please," she cried, but choked on a sob.
She clutched her fingers into the woolen blanket for as long as she could hold
on, but Aldar lifted the babe high above his head into the swirling smoke
around the low rafters. The infant wailed loudly in protest, thrashing its
small limbs and coughing at the choking air.

"Please stop," the woman cried.

Aldar gave her a furious glare that scared her back
from him. Only when the woman ceased reaching for the infant did he bring the
child down. Aldar tore his eyes from the thrall to the babe and held her closer
to have a look, but no sooner had he brought her to him, than the girl-child
quickly clutched her small fingers into his red-gold beard. The infant screamed
fiercely at him.

“Let go, you devil,” he bellowed as the tugs on his
beard became sharper. As Aldar struggled to pull the tiny claws free, he
glowered at the babe. She could be no more than a few months old. He should not
be surprised. Enough time had passed for Surguilde to bear his brother a child.
A fool he had been to think such a thing would not be so. To think
she
had returned
his
love. Aldar turned for the door, ready to be done with the
babe.

“Please do not!” the thrall cried, trailing after him
without fear now. “I know you loved my mistress and that you were to be Jarl,
Aldar. No one here has forgotten that. But do not take your pain out on the
babe, I beg you. She may come to help you. Aye. Keep Finna as your own. You
could barter with Hadarr for her life.” She paused as they both came to a stop,
and Aldar turned to look over his shoulder at her. “You would prosper greatly
should you heed me. I am her nurse," the woman said gently, again reaching
for the child. "I would care for her in your house, if you so choose to
spare her.
You
could raise her, be it
as a thrall like myself or as your own daughter.”

Aldar paused, the woman's words rolling through his
mind as he looked into the tiny face staring back at him. Aye, the thrall had
wisdom. And the longer he looked at the girl-child, the more likeness he saw to
her mother. The infant calmed and stared back at him in innocence.

He could not kill this child, not only for her
mother’s resemblance, but for the love he surely knew Surguilde bore the babe.
He may not be able to have the woman he had cherished and loved, but he could
take her child as his own and keep a piece of Surguilde for himself.

And in that would he also get his retribution against
his brother.

His own blood that had forsaken him!

For surely Hadarr loved this infant just as much.

Aye, he would take this child and her nurse.

“Come, woman," Aldar said, casting his gaze to
the burning rafters. "Take the babe and yourself to the cart. I shall
spare you so long as you never allow this child to know who her real sire is.”
With that, he thrust the child back into the thrall’s outstretched arms and
pushed them in front of himself, steering the woman from the burning longhouse
with all haste now.

No wonder there had been but a small contingent of men left here,
Aldar thought as they stepped out into the muted light of the midnight
sun. No one had suspected trouble, and most of Hadarr’s men were with him. The
journey to the north of their homeland would have been too rough and long on
one so young as a child not yet weaned. Neither would Surguilde take her infant
to a place of sickness.

Aldar gave the thrall one last shove and stopped to
watch his men preparing his newly gained thralls to leave, loading them into a
roughly fashioned cart. Many were wailing for their lost loved ones lying dead
on the ground around them, but all had long since lost any fight they might have
had left. His warriors would have seen to that in any form of brutality needed.

Aldar whistled for his horse, and an animal as dark as
night came to his call, prancing to the steps and tossing its giant black head,
snorting with eagerness. Aldar swung his leg over the beast and mounted. When
he sat high in the saddle, he looked over the carnage. A deep satisfaction
curled in his gut, licking like a flame.

A flame that stoked a dark desire to make Hadarr pay
dearly.

He had not received what he had dearly hoped for this
day, only compensation. Revenge would come. He had no doubt of that now.

It had not taken him long to raise a force to attack
Hadarr. Only the passing year. And in the years to come, he wagered he would be
seeing his brother's shores on this broken fjord aplenty. Hadarr would pay
dearly for taking his place here as Jarl and as husband to Surguilde.

He would pay until he had nothing left.

Come the day they were safely back in his hall, Aldar
would question his new thralls, to find when his brother would be returning to
a devastated village and home. To an empty storehouse and bones scattered about
his barren yard.

Aldar laughed heartily at this as he looked into the
midnight sun hanging like a ball of fire on the horizon, thinking of how his
fortune had turned. His stare lighted on the thrall as she willingly stepped
into the cart, the infant pressed close to her breast.

When will my brother return home to find an empty cradle?
he wondered.

His brother may be Jarl, but
he
now had all the spoils of a long lasting victory!

Chapter One

Norway, twenty
years later

815 A.D.

A loud vibrating ping shot through the room as a broadsword pierced
into the wooden wall with a hard
thunk
.

Finna jerked awake, lifting herself from the
straw-stuffed mattress with swift alertness. The fur bedcovers fell from her
body as she took in the room, her labored breaths filling the small area. She
poised her dagger to strike any intruder as the whirling motion of her
night-vision still spun her where she sat.

There was no one there, and Finna gulped in cool air
to regain her breath. Her heart raced wildly, drumming against her chest. She
placed the backs of her fingers to her moist forehead and blinked at the dark
interior of her room.

Nothing moved.

It was only a dream.

She rolled her head back on her shoulders and breathed
a sigh of relief at finding no sword implanted into the wall high above her.

It was as though the impact of the sword had really
been loud enough to wake her though. Finna sat her dagger away on the table
beside her bed and groaned aloud as she reached up to smooth a hand over her
damp hair, her hand grazing the sweat beaded at her temple. She closed her eyes
and swiped away the perspiration on her brow with the sleeve of her nightdress
and then slung the bedcovers away as she began to pull herself off the
mattress.

As her toes touched the floor, Finna winced at the
cold and pulled her feet back, curling her toes at the chill. It sent a shiver
all the way up her spine to tingle at her scalp. Even with furs surrounding her
bed, the cold seeped into her dwelling, and still deeper, into her bones. She
shivered and started again, stretching as she stood and then started for the
pile of wood she had brought in the night before.

Winter approached on a swift wing this year, though
the grasses remained green and only on the highest peaks did frost linger. The
seer told of a
fimbulvetr,
or mighty
winter, to come. A winter that would lead to Ragnarök. While she did not doubt
the harshness of a Nordic winter, speaking of Ragnarök was another thing
entirely. Finna doubted very much this winter would bring the end of the world
or much else other than the norm.

Finna hurried to the stack and bent to gather wood
beside the door. She cradled enough to warm her dwelling for the short time she
planned to be here, and then started back across to the stone pit built up in
the center of the single room. As she dropped the logs in, a wave of ash went
up from the muted embers, and Finna dropped into the chair there to puff at the
dying coals before they faded entirely.

She poked dry leaves and branches into the lingering
heat, kindling a spark, and after a moment, a small flame caught. She bent her
head close to blow once more to quicken the flame and then pulled back to hold
her hands over the flickering glow as the fire grew and spread to the dry
limbs, quickly becoming a gentle blaze that sent dancing shadows across the
room.

Finna shivered again and rubbed at her arms, her stare
finding the spot above her bed where the sword had stuck in her dream.

The same old vision reoccurred every time a raid came
near. It had become most tiring over the years, though she should be used to it
by now. The night vision no longer bothered her as it had when she was but a
girl. Raids struck fear into the hearts of most, but not hers. She did not fear
battle or blood. The aura of combat sang through her to her core. She thrived
on raiding, on the clash of steel.

On vengeance and retribution.

Her lower belly cramped then, and Finna gritted her
teeth. The cold would not be the only thing to bother her today. With a wash of
annoyance, Finna stood and lifted her nightdress to check between her legs, and
as she suspected, her courses had not
yet
come, but soon. She dropped the hem back into place. She would not let her
femininity hinder her, not today.

Finna reached for her clothing where she had tossed
the articles over the back of the chair and took her breeches, shaking them out
and stepped in. She made quick work of lacing the front and then discarded her
nightdress. She took up her tunic next and thrust her arms and head inside,
pulled the garment down over her bare breasts, and then tugged her long,
silver-pale hair free over her shoulder. She noted her breasts were more tender
than usual, another sign sent to bother her.